Hey, folks. I've uploaded an update to VR Sportfishing. For now let's consider it a beta, because I haven't had time to throroghly fish all the lakes with this update yet. If it works well for everybody it will become the official update. So if you don't mind running a beta version, feel free to download it. If you're concerned about your saved games you can make backup copies just in case you run into any trouble those are the (username).gam files in the game folder.

Here's what's in this update:

You'll notice a delay when starting a fishing trip or tournament since the program is doing a lot more work to calculate the distribution of fish now. This may take as little as 5 seconds if you have a fairly fast computer, but it may take longer on some computers. There's also a delay of a few seconds when calling the guide because the guide is doing a lot more research.

Better performance - Adjusting the draw distance in the settings will now effect the distance at which trees, weeds and fish show up, plus the landscape itself. The range for each is different, so at the lowest setting fish and weeds would show up within about 100 feet, trees within 300 feet, and land at 1,000 feet or so. If the game runs slowly for you try experimenting with this setting and I think you'll find a level that looks good and runs considerably faster. Some changes in this update should speed things up a bit even if you don't lower the settings.

Schooling fish - You now find fish in schools, especially the perch, crappies and bluegills, but in some conditions the others may school somewhat too.

Adjusted and stabilized populations - In the past under some conditions some species may be excessively abundant or rare in a whole lake. Now each lake will have its appropriate population of each species regardless of conditions.

Keyboard shortcuts for map and locator overlays - Press M to turn the map on and off, L for the locator.

Choice of boats - You can start any fish trip on the dock or in any boat up to the most expensive boat you've bought. In tournaments you'll always be in the most expensive boat you've bought.

Guide shows you specific spots - When you consult the guide check out the full-screen map (you've got to be in drive mode to see the full-screen map.) The map will show fish icons to mark high concentrations of the species you're after: the bigger the fish icon, the higher the concentration of fish in that area. I'm a bit concerned that this feature may be too big an advantage in tournaments, since it can put you right on top of a school of fish. I might have to disable this feature during tournament fishing, or reduce the precision.

Topographic lake maps - The full-screen map shows the depth with shades of blue - the lightest blue is 0-10 feet deep, the next darker blue is 10-20 feet, etc.

All boats visible on full-screen lake map - The non-player boats, the shop and your own boat are easily seen on the full-screen map view, so you can safely drive the boat in that view.

Wider fish locator cone - The sonar fish finder will detect fish in a slightly wider range near the boat. Like a real fish finder, the deeper the water, the wider the area it covers.

Less spooky fish - You can get a little closer to fish with your boat without spooking them. That will help especially for jigging in moderately shallow water.

A fix for a bug that caused money to reset to zero if you had way too much (around 40 million.) Now your money will max out at 30 million and stay there.

Improved non-player skill level for the various tournaments - Some tournaments were excessively hard or easy to win relative to the entry fee.

Some tweaks to panfish feeding and higher populations - It should be easier to catch bluegills, crappie and perch now.

A few other minor bug fixes, including one that caused some incomplete sentences in the guide's advice, some difficulty using the Vuzix VR920 dispaly in some settings, etc.

I think that about covers it. In the next update I want to get some live bait in there and possibly several docks per lake to fish from, or other ways to access some of the smaller lakes you see on the maps that aren't currently accessible by boat. And of course support for custom lakes and a lake editor will be fun, but that one will take more time.

Here's the link for the update: http://www.pishtech.com/vrsportfishing_ ... 090306.zip Unzip the file into your game folder (by default, that's c:\games\pishtech\vrsportfishing) and you should be ready to go. If you have any trouble you can always get the previous update from the Pishtech downloads page and unzip that one to revert to the previous build.

There is variation of size within the schools, but it's not uncommon to have many fish similar in size within a school. In one school of walleyes you might find the majority of fish range from 12 to 16 inches with a few bigger or smaller, and another school elsewhere in the lake may have a majority of fish a little larger or smaller than that. This is also common in real life. If it seems the grouping by size is excessive I can adjust that in the next update.

One of my testing tools allows me to fly over the lake and see every fish marked on the surface, and then to basically pilot a submarine to go down for a closer look. I've seen some real trophies in schools with smaller fish, and occasionally found schools with a really nice average size.

Having some problems however. Ever since I installed update, l lost all my underwater vegetation. I have my video settings maxed out in the game...I even played with the video settings and still dont have any underwater vegetation (weeds, etc.). I have a geforce 7800 gt video card. Everything worked fine before this update. Any ideas? thanks.

Wow - that's strange. The only change that should effect the weeds is the draw distance setting, but if you have that maxed out it should draw every weed anywhere near your boat. Does this seem to effect all the lakes? There's a chance it's just a corrupt download and downloading again could fix it, but the odds are fairly low since it's a pretty small file.

Paul, I havent tried all lakes but have tried a few. No vegetation in the lakes I tried...Several spots that I've fished where there should be lots of vegetation there is nothing...There is fish however...

OK, we can rule out download problems then. I'll see if I can reproduce the problem on one of my computers or find any possible explanation. In the mean time if anybody discovers a pattern to the problem, like a setting that effects it, please let me know.

I was also able to find some vegetation on Eagle Lake while in a tournament and while I was free fishing. Not a lot of it, but some. When I fish from the docks I dont see vegetation anymore. Example is Kinni Lake-when I fished from the dock I used to be able to see vegetation everywhere. Not anymore. There are a couple of other spots I also fished on Kinni Lake with a boat. Vegetation used to be all over. now gone. Although I can find some vegetation on Eagle Lake, I used to see it all over the place while fishing on the dock there. None now.